Boston Marathon bombing victims' tragedy turns to joy

3 years ago

A 39-year-old spectator wounded in the Boston Marathon bombings hoped only that she and her boyfriend would survive the tragedy whole. Instead, the couple, who had been trying to conceive since the fall, learned they'd also be having a baby.

The story, reported by the Boston Globe, explains that Caroline Reinsch was being treated for a puncture wound that "punched a bloody hole in her thigh all the way to the femur, splitting the quad muscle" when the X-ray technician at Boston's Faulkner Hospital asked, “Is there a possibility you're pregnant?”

"Possibly," said Reinsch. "But probably not.” Unbeknownst to her, the Globe reports, she was given a pregnancy test.

Reinsch's 42-year-old boyfriend, Christian Williams, who had been taken to a different hospital, had his "legs and right hand ... ripped open" while watching the marathon with Reinsch when the first bomb exploded on Boylston Street. They were reunited 11 days later at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital, where doctors were still trying to save his leg.

"I could have lost my legs, my hand, my life, or even worse, the life of someone I love," Williams, who had three rounds of surgeries so far, wrote in a message to friends posted to Facebook on April 21. "But I did not. Few men are given a chance in life to see how lucky they are. That moment has come and I can see. I am one of the luckiest men alive."

He got luckier. According to the Globe, when Reinsch was going over her discharge records with her regular doctor, he informed her that a pregnancy test at Faulkner revealed a "slight positive." He suggested taking a home pregnancy test. She did, and it was positive.

She did not believe the news. The Globe reports: "How could she get her hopes up when every part of her felt exhausted, when she had to spend 20 hours a day in the brace and the other four locked into a torturous stretching device, and when Christian was so badly hurt?"

Five days later, Reinsch took another pregnancy test while visiting Williams in the hospital. Positive again.

From the Globe:

She wept for a long moment in the sterile fluorescent light. Then she composed herself, went to sit in a chair by her boyfriend’s bed and leaned gently against him. Each time she visited him so far, she had brought him magazines or food. Today she appeared to come empty-handed. Then she reached into the pocket of her skirt. “I have something for you,” she said, drawing out the plastic stick.

“Any pain or suffering I felt has been replaced with joy,” Williams told the newspaper. “Discovering that I was going to be a father is how I’ll always remember the Marathon.”

The couple waited until Father's Day (and Williams’ 42nd birthday) to reveal her pregnancy.

"They wanted it to be a surprise, a gift to their families from amid the horror and suffering of April 15," the Globe said.